Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

From Peter Marshall - 

I enjoyed your article about PemAir in NetLetter #1514

I used to travel a lot between Sudbury and Montreal and I always dropped in to check on the airline as I passed through Pembroke.

At the start, they used a Beech D18S, then in the late sixties, they added a DC-3, getting a second one in the early ‘70s. They flew Pembroke to Toronto twice a day. I believe they were in a 28-seat layout.

One of the DC-3's was parted out at Pembroke and replaced by a Beech 99. The ‘99 was not there long and the airline soldiered on with the DC-3 until it, too, was replaced by a pair of Piper Navajo Chieftains. They were set up with eight passenger seats and were mostly single pilot (permitted with an autopilot.)

The airline tried to diversify in the mid ‘70s, adding a Bell 47J and a couple of Cessnas which formed the basis of a flight school. The 47J, a rare bird in itself, was replaced by a Hughes 300 and a Bell 206 was added. I do not know how long the helicopter operation lasted but it was gone by the mid-80s.

With the fall in traffic out of Pembroke, the airline experimented with sked flights to North Bay, Ottawa and Montreal. These were not successful.

They tried again with a network that included a number of southern Ontario cities and, like many small airlines, used at least one Jetstream 31. Those were the days of Trillium Air as the name PemAir was too felt to be too local for a wider audience. That was then replaced by the Beech 100 that was in your photo and the airline contracted in size and returned to focus on Pembroke-Toronto before throwing in the towel.

I lost track of the airline in the nineties when I moved out west but I tried to keep an eye on them whenever I came across some news.

I believe, from dim memory, that the southern Ontario routes connected Ottawa with London and Kitchener, but maybe someone knows more about that end of the operation.

I did not know Del O'Brien had written a book. I am sure it would be most interesting to read.

Peter Marshall
Sidney, British Columbia

P.S. As a freelance writer, I did articles on Nordair and Quebecair for Canadian Aviation and Flight International. I did a story on PemAir for Canadian Aviation and that was my last one for that magazine.